Talk:Doctor's Tools (5e Equipment)

The problem with this tool is that, compared to other tools, it represents an activity which already has a skill, which characters can be proficient in. In particular, the Doctor background, which this was made to go with, gives you proficiency with the medicine skill and this kit. This effectively makes the tool kit redundant. There's no reason to have it if it does nothing you couldn't already do. It isn't even a means of characters "buying" a proficiency, because they'd need to be proficient with it anyways. That's why i had it grant advantage on medicine checks; so that it would still be useful to a doctor, and could potentially be used by non-doctors to save someone's life. Even then, though, I'm still not fully certain what kind of role it should actually play. It makes sense to have the object as a prop, and it makes sense to give that prop mechanical use, but beyond that...?--Kydo (talk) 11:05, 27 October 2014 (MDT)

That's a good point, but I do think that advantage on all medicine checks is too good. It might work if it's some smaller subset of the skill, and better still if instead the proficiency bonus is doubled in these cases (per PHB 173) if you have proficiency in both Medicine and Doctor's Tools. My next idea is that the tools can be used to help treat long-term illness or disease (rather than for "first aid"): the Medicine description says it can be used to diagnose illness but doesn't mention treating it. However, I cannot see any rules for treating disease yet, they are probably in the DMG. Marasmusine (talk) 01:46, 28 October 2014 (MDT)